Is Higher Education Overpriced?

The arguments contained in this report are pretty similar to what I passed along in an earlier post. Those supporting the increases in higher education costs essentially say that the high tech world is creating greater demand for education and Baumol's law (service sectors don't see productivity improvements the way other economic sectors do) restrains supply. The inevitable result is higher education prices (and, in a similar vein, higher health care prices).

This study disputes those conclusions and points instead to 12 "market restrictions" that are the "real" culprits behind increasing higher education costs. Those 12 are listed in the table of contents, but the basic solution, according to this study, is to increase market competition and limit government involvement. I think in practice, however, the government won't limit its involvement, but will instead attempt to increase its regulation of the "industry" to address these concerns. We're already seeing that in a host of legislative initiatives.

http://www.collegeaffordability.net/CCAP_Report.pdf